


A Northward-Blowing Wind

by Chrome



Category: Critical Role (Web Series)
Genre: Canon Compliant, Eiselcross Arc, Fate & Destiny, Friendship, Gen, Having Faith
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2021-01-01
Updated: 2021-01-01
Packaged: 2021-03-10 04:47:59
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 2,870
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/27939167
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Chrome/pseuds/Chrome
Summary: The Mighty Nein travel onwards through Eiselcross. Fjord and Caduceus talk about faith, the future, and hats--not necessarily in that order.
Relationships: Caduceus Clay & Fjord
Comments: 14
Kudos: 47
Collections: Critmas Exchange 2020





	A Northward-Blowing Wind

**Author's Note:**

  * For [mocrow](https://archiveofourown.org/users/mocrow/gifts).



Caduceus  _ has  _ a hat, Fjord knows, but his continual refusal to  _ actually put it on  _ is driving Fjord crazy. You could argue that since Caduceus is from the Savalirwood, he’s more a northerner than any of them and knows what he’s doing. But that’s bullshit, Fjord knows. He saw the way Caduceus’s eyes went big and round the first time they trekked northwards, the same way the pupils expanded when he stared out at the sea for the first time. The Greying Wildlands might be a part of the North, but they’ve got nothing on Eiselcross.

Besides, while Fjord’s never been to the grove, Beau once described it to him when they were bored and attempting to stay awake on a long watch.  _ Unnaturally summer,  _ she’d said, describing how there was some kind of magic trapping out the worst aspects of the weather. And Caduceus—well, Fjord doesn’t think he’d literally never left his graveyard before he met them, but either way, he doesn’t find it hard to believe he doesn’t have much experience with the cold.

You could also argue that between his hair and the fur, he’s better-suited to the cold than anyone but Jester, but Fjord knows better about that, too. His fur is very fine—F jord has felt it, like a thin lining of velvet over his skin. It’s not doing much to keep him warm, especially at his ears, where it makes the curves soft and lamb-like and does little else besides collect ice crystals as water vapor catches and settles on the soft hairs. At least he’s grown out the undercut.

Fjord’s not that observant, but from the first time he catches Jester scolding Caduceus to put on the hat, he can’t stop thinking about it. He keeps glancing at him as they trek onwards through the snow. Caduceus always takes the edge of their group, eyes scanning the landscape. It is bright and white and Fjord’s eyes are often stinging at the end of the day when he  _ isn’t  _ on constant watch; it’s hard to see the bloodshot against the pink of his irises, but Fjord knows Caduceus’s are far worse.

Fjord won’t tell him to stop, though. This is a dangerous place. A haunted place. They need Caduceus’s eyes on the landscape. But that doesn’t make Fjord feel better about it, and even when he’s walking besides Beau or Jester, his gaze drifts over occasionally, watching Caduceus keep an eye on the rest of the world, one ear swiveled towards the group to listen to their conversation and the other tilted out towards the swathes of snow.

There is a line of ice that has gathered along the bottom edge of his ear, Fjord knows, and he can catch flashes of ice in his hair, too, where the snow has landed and melted and refrozen.

_ Ugh _ , Fjord thinks, and opens his mouth to say something, and then swivels away from Beau to drop into step next to Veth.

“What?” she says, startled out of her conversation with Caleb.

“Can you get something for me?”

“Not your maid!” she says. “What?”

“Steal something,” he corrects.

Her eyes light up. Sometimes it’s hard to see the line between goblin Nott and halfling Veth, but when her eyes glow at the prospect of theft, then yep, there she is. “What am I taking?”

“Shh,” Fjord says, casting a quick glance around at the others.

“Oh, okay,” Veth drops her voice into the sort-of whisper she tends to fall into when they’re attempting to be quiet. “Am I stealing from one of them? I’m not stealing from Caleb. What am I taking?”

“Caduceus’s hat.”

Veth looks at Caduceus. “He’s not wearing a hat.”

“It’s in his bag.”

“You want me to take his hat out of his bag,” she sounds doubtful.

“You can’t do it?” Fjord asks. “I know he’s pretty observant, so—“

“I can do it,” Veth says, giving her best impression of offense. “Why do you want me to take it? He probably won’t even notice, he’s not wearing it.”

“Yeah,” Fjord says. “That’s the point.” When she gives him another doubtful look, he says, “Just say if you don’t think you can do it.”

Just as he expects, that makes her bristle and straighten up to her full height, which isn’t really any taller. “I can do it. Just watch me.”

They drift back apart. Veth isn’t particularly subtle, but she is a good thief, and while Fjord falls back into step in between Beau and Jester, she catches back up with Caleb. Fjord almost doesn’t notice about five minutes later, when she drifts over to where Caduceus is, trailing behind Yasha. She starts a conversation that involves quizzing Caduceus about the variety of trees that dot the landscape—about which the answer is inevitably “I don’t know”—that Fjord deliberately tunes out to try and avoid looking suspicious.

Finally, about twenty minutes later, she drifts back into step with him. “Here,” she says in that harsh barely-whisper, and presses the hat into his hands. “Told you I could do it.”

“Thanks,” Fjord says. He almost says ‘I owe you one’ but that’s a dangerous notion with Veth, so he doesn’t.

“You owe me one,” she says, and then she skips back to Caleb’s side.

Fjord is patient. He waits to make his move until the late afternoon. It’s the time of day in Nicodranas when the sun would be sideways in the sky and everything would be hot, the light twinkling off the blue water, the paving stones themselves warm with all the heat they’ve soaked up. In Eiselcross, though, the sun traverses a low-hanging path across the side of the sky like a bird struggling to get altitude, and before it’s evening it’s dropping even from that position, low and pale even though it’s bright against the endless expanse of snow.

It’s colder, and the crystals in Caduceus’s ears have solidified, grown until it looks as though there’s the beginnings of an icicle dripping from the edge. He’s drawn in on himself a little more—he’s dressed warm, layers on layers, good wool and silk, but shivering despite it.

Yasha has drifted over to talk to Beau, and Fjord casually disengages from the conversation and makes his way over, pulling the hat out of his pocket.

“You should be wearing this,” Fjord says, and with all the grace he can manage, launches himself on tiptoe and hooks the hat over Caduceus’s head.

“Oh, hey,” Caduceus says. He reaches up but he doesn’t take it off, just straightens it. The gesture knocks some of the ice off of his ears. “When did you—oh, you had Veth take this?”

“So you did notice,” Fjord says, a little impressed, a little crestfallen.

“Well, yeah,” Caduceus answers. “But I figured it was fine. This is a pretty serious thing we’re getting into, so I figured if she wanted to play a prank, what was the harm?” He looks at Fjord for the first time, compensating for taking his eyes off the hills by swinging his ears back. “Or you wanted to play a prank?”

“It wasn’t a prank,” Fjord says.

“Oh, good,” Caduceus grins. “It wasn’t a very good one.”

“I just wanted you to keep warm.” Fjord feels pretty silly, now.

“I am, thanks,” Caduceus said.

“You have ice on your ears.”

“I do?” He reaches up and brushes at them, knocking off the worst of the ice crystals. There’s still some left and Fjord has to fight the urge to reach up and finish the job.

“Can’t you feel that?”

“Not really.”

“That’s bad,” Fjord does reach over then, and Caduceus pauses walking in deference while Fjord sweeps the rest of the ice off them, brushing a thumb along the edge. “Really, you can’t feel it?”

“I can feel your hand,” Caduceus says. “They’re just a little numb.”

Fjord’s ears are, too, but he’s also aware that Caduceus has a talent for understatement when it comes to himself. “Put them in your hat.”

“Then I won’t be able to hear things coming,” Caduceus points out. He makes a face. “Besides, it would feel weird.”

“It would be warmer,” Fjord points out, but he’s already wavering.

“Would you like your ears pinned against your head?” Caduceus asks.

Fjord’s ears are already pretty close to the sides of his head—the color and the points aside, they look pretty much human. But he lets it go—at least he’s got the hat on, now. “You’ve been keeping watch quite carefully,” he says, instead.

“Yeah. I don’t like any of this. Something bad’s happening here.”

“I’m starting to get that sense,” Fjord admits. “I was thinking this might be—well, everything we do is a little dangerous, but—fun? Is that the right word?”

“Some things we do are more dangerous than others,” Caduceus agrees. He’s quiet for a moment. “Maybe not for us—I think the consequence for us might just be ending up in the ground a little sooner than we were planning on. But I don’t think that’s true for just us, this time.”

“There might be consequences that go beyond, ah,” Fjord sweeps a hand around towards the others. “Us.”

“Yeah,” Caduceus agrees. “That’s about it.”

“So I don’t suppose we can change our minds and go home,” Fjord says. He’s mostly joking.

“I can’t,” Caduceus says, simply.

The way he says it,  _ I can’t,  _ puts an image into Fjord’s head—Caduceus, trudging onwards in the snow, alone. Huddling deeper and deeper into his new coat, still hatless, ice crystals forming longer and colder on his hair and ears. “Would you do it without us?” Fjord asks.

“Do what?”

“Keep going. Fight this thing.”

“I don’t know,” Caduceus says, thoughtfully. “That’s kind of hard to answer. Because I wouldn’t be here without all of you. I’d probably still be in the Grove.” A troubled expression flickers across his face. “I had gotten—I said this to Yasha—I had gotten pretty complacent. I should have left before I did. My family—anyway. A good thing that you came along. What was the question?” He refocuses. “I don’t think I’d have come to Eiselcross if I hadn’t met you all.”

“Well,” Fjord stumbles, because he’d not been thinking of that at all and that’s a thought all of its own. “That’s not what I meant. If we—I’m not suggesting that—we’re going to do this. But the way you said that, it made me wonder if you would keep going if we all had decided to turn back. After we’d all gotten here.”

“I don’t think you would have,” Caduceus says. “Because I think you believe that this is important. That whatever’s happening here, it’s a bad thing, and if we don’t stop it then bad things are going to happen. The kind of thing we can’t escape by running away.”

“No, but if we had,” Fjord says.

“It’s not possible to answer that.”

“Why not?”

“Because you wouldn’t be—the same people. We wouldn’t be here. I wouldn’t be here. None of us would have found ourselves in this place, in this moment, if we weren’t the kind of people who would go forward.”

Fjord feels, briefly, ashamed. There’s no doubt in Caduceus’s voice but plenty of doubt in Fjord’s mind. The certainty of Caduceus’s words doesn’t reflect the ways he’s lain awake, how he’s wondered about turning back. How he’s thought about leaving here and going back to Nicodranas, to the warm sun and the sea.

“You have a lot of faith in us,” Fjord says.

“Yes,” Caduceus says, simply.

“Do you think we are meant to be here, then?” Fjord asks. “Has the Wildmother—spoken to you?”

“Yes,” Caduceus says. “And no.”

“Yes and no?”

“Yes, I think we’re meant to be here,” Caduceus says. He hesitates. “And no, the Wildmother hasn’t said anything to me about it.”

“Then how do you know?” Fjord doesn’t like how plaintive it comes out.

“I don’t,” Caduceus says simply. “Sometimes I’m not sure I know anything for sure. I spent a long time—ten years, or almost that—sure that I was doing the right thing, by staying in the Grove. That it was where I was meant to be.”

“Caduceus…” Fjord starts, but Caduceus shakes his head.

“It wasn’t. Not by the end. I know that now. She didn’t come to me and say, _Clay, it is time to go._ But I should have known it anyway. She doesn’t have to tell me things directly. I like it when She does,” he admits, with a sheepish duck of his head. “But I have also spent my life serving Her, and learning the ways of Her world, and part of that is learning how to follow Her on my own.”

This time, Fjord waits to see if Caduceus is done, and is rewarded when Caduceus adds, “Not sure how I’m doing, but I’m—learning. I think we’re all learning.”

“Yes,” Fjord agrees. “I’ve learned a lot. I’ve learned a lot from you.”

“I’m glad,” Caduceus says. “I’ve learned a lot from you, too.”

Fjord laughs. “I don’t know if there’s a lot worth learning from me.”

“Oh,” Caduceus says. “I think there is.”

“Like what?” Fjord feels guilty, instantly, for asking. It feels like asking for praise. But Caduceus doesn’t shoot him a knowing look. He looks thoughtful.

“From you,” Caduceus says, “I have learned how to talk to people. Not just to read people,” he adds, anticipating the objection, “But how to be friends with them. How to be—before I met you all, I’d never had friends before. I’d lived with my family, my whole life. I knew how to be a son, and a brother, and a priest, and a gravekeeper, and that was all. And you are very good, Fjord, at being many things to many people. I know you’ve been working on that—on figuring out which of those things are really you, and which are people you’re pretending to be. And that’s great. I’m really proud of you for that. But that doesn’t mean you have to be one self to everyone. I think we can all be a lot of people. Fill a lot of different places in people’s lives. And I’m—learning how to do that. And I’m learning it from you.”

“That doesn’t seem right,” Fjord says, after a moment. He has to swallow hard to get the lump out of his throat. Caduceus is so—sincere. “That we were your first friends.”

“It does seem to be a bit of a shame,” Caduceus says lightly. “No one else will ever live up.”

“I appreciate that,” Fjord says.

“I’m also learning how to be brave,” Caduceus says. “I’m learning how to make choices quickly, when they matter. And take risks. When to push a button or kick a door.”

Now Fjord knows Caduceus is teasing, a little. “That doesn’t always go very well,” he says.

“No,” Caduceus agrees. “But neither does staying in a graveyard for ten years, as though your inaction will change something. Sometimes you have to leap. And I have learned that from you, too.” He looks at Fjord full-on, suddenly serious. “I told you—in the Kiln, you said that I inspired you. You have inspired me too. I’m proud of you. And I’m grateful to have known you.”

“I’m grateful to have known you, too,” Fjord says. “To know you. It’s not—you talk like something is ending.”

“I don’t know,” Caduceus says. “It feels a little like something is. Hopefully not in a bad way. Sometimes things have to end for new things to begin.”

“This will end,” Fjord says. “We’ll—stop this, whatever  _ it  _ is, and we’ll get out of Eiselcross and we’ll—I don’t know. Have more adventures. I’d like to—go back to Nicodranas. I’d like to see the Grove!”

“I’d like to show it to you,” Caduceus says. “That’s—yes, that would be a good ending.”

“You don’t think we’ll get it?” Fjord asks.

“I don’t know,” Caduceus says. “I think—I don’t know. Sometimes you don’t know. Sometimes you have to be brave. To leap without knowing.”

Fjord feels a little surge of warmth. He isn’t sure if he’s a brave person, or merely pretending to be, most of the time. But if this is something Caduceus thinks of him—if Fjord has made Caduceus feel he can be braver—then that’s a good thing. “But you do think we’re meant to be here.”

“I feel we are,” Caduceus says.

“What does that feel like?”

“Like a wind,” Caduceus says. “Blowing north.”

“And you’re following it,” Fjord says.

“Walking with it,” Caduceus says. “I think it would be harder to walk against it. I think I would feel it inside me.”

“I don’t feel it,” Fjord admits.

“Do you think we’re meant to be somewhere else?”

“No,” Fjord says. “I don’t.”

“Why not?”

“Because you think we’re meant to be here,” Fjord says. “And I have faith in you.”

Caduceus smiles. The wind that catches the ends of his hair and swirls the strands around his face is blowing north.


End file.
